The Financial Times reported oil above $108 a barrel on Monday. A market post put the 10-year Treasury yield at about 5.23%. Stocks fell.
Higher energy costs are feeding inflation fears, making the outlook for interest rates harder to read.
Oil, Yields and the Fed
The Stock Tweets digest said Trump rejected Iran’s latest proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Reports of possible further talks later helped oil ease, the digest said.
A market post put the odds of an October Fed rate hike of 25 basis points at about 68%. By the close, the S&P 500 was down about 0.8% and the Dow about 0.7%. A closing update said 334 S&P 500 stocks fell and 165 rose. The reported average 30-year US mortgage rate was 7.03%.
The Financial Times reported another source of pressure on yields: Treasury planned to buy $6 billion in bonds, below Wall Street estimates of $8 billion to $10 billion. The 10-year yield rose after the announcement, it reported.
Tom Lee of Fundstrat offered a less aggressive Fed view. He said a new way of calculating core PCE could lower its current 3.4% reading by roughly 20 to 40 basis points. Softer September jobs data could also support a less aggressive stance, he said.
The political claims were sharper. The @geopoliticaleconomyreport speaker blamed Trump and the Iran war for rising inflation and said cost-of-living frustration could hurt Republicans in the midterms. The Long Investor said Trump has five weeks to end the war and bring down oil and the 10-year yield, or risk losing the midterms, the market and his legacy.
AI Plans Put Spending and Returns in Focus
Nvidia increased its share buyback plan by $150 billion, taking the remaining authorization to $235 billion through fiscal 2028. Its shares rose about 1.7% by the close. Nvidia also introduced an AI security system for its hardware that it said would have prevented the Hugging Face attack.
Meta is building AI products for companies and individuals. Future Investors reported that its Enterprise Platform will sell Muse models, agents and coding tools to companies. MongoDB chief CJ Desai will lead the unit; MongoDB fell more than 18% after the appointment.
Meta’s Muse personal agent app can handle tasks such as booking appointments and filling out forms. The company plans a free tier and subscriptions of $20 or $100 a month. Meta says the agent asks before sensitive actions. Users must opt out if they do not want their interactions used to train its models.
Meta is already under pressure to show returns on its AI spending. It has also agreed to pay nearly $17 billion to settle a case brought by state attorneys general over harms on Facebook and Instagram.
Posts about Anthropic’s IPO filing put its 2025 revenue at $4.59 billion, its operating loss at $8.06 billion and its compute and infrastructure expense at $7.33 billion. The operating loss was larger than revenue.
The reported net loss needs a separate explanation. One post put it at $41.97 billion. Another said $34 billion of a roughly $42 billion loss was an accounting charge tied to financing that could become shares. That changes how to read the headline figure.
Trade Moves in Different Directions
Watcher.Guru reported a US-China agreement to cut tariffs on $60 billion worth of goods. Separately, the Stock Tweets digest said the countries extended their trade truce by two months to mid-January.
Trump threatened to stop Bombardier sales in the US unless the company builds there. Bombardier said it directly employs people in more than 20 states, has sites in 10 states and uses American-made components. Canadian retaliatory tariffs cover about $20 billion of US goods.
Trump also renewed his call for lower rates and threatened to halt trade with countries with which the US has a trade deficit.
Other Signals and Investing Views
Indonesia will lower its stock exchange’s minimum share price from Rp50 to Rp1 on Monday. The Financial Times said the aim is better liquidity and price discovery as Jakarta seeks to avoid an MSCI downgrade.
Fidelity reported that the average 401(k) balance rose 10.5% from March through June. Participants in their 30s averaged $75,200; those in their 40s averaged $156,800.
Two investing blogs offered judgments about companies. The @value-investing speaker said Starbucks comparable sales and profit margins have improved and projected that annual net income could return to $4 billion. The @theintelligentinvestor speaker argued that Nvidia and several other semiconductor stocks look cheap relative to expected growth, while Tesla, Walmart and Apple look expensive by that comparison.
The @wallstreetmillennial narrator challenged The Boring Company’s projects. He said its proposed $1 billion Chicago airport tunnel never began construction and that its Las Vegas Loop uses employee-driven cars. After a reported $3 billion UAE funding round tied to plans for 93 miles of tunnels, he said he expects the company to become a total loss.
For the immediate market picture, Wednesday’s PCE report and Friday’s jobs report are the next numbers to watch.